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_[5]RECENT NEWS__ _

__8 October 1999

_NASA risks__ Galileo spacecraft by_
_FLYING A "KITE" AT IO!_

[6]JPL News wrote: "Galileo makes two daring passes less than 620 km
above Io on October 11 and November 25, 1999. In November Galileo
might even pass through the plume of Pillan Patera, making it the
first spacecraft ever to fly through an alien volcano."

NASA scientists are upholding a long tradition of misinterpreting
observations from their space probes. This time they are jeopardising
one of their most successful missions. Long ago in 1979, when the
so-called volcanoes of Io were first discovered, Professor Thomas Gold
of Cornell University wrote that they are actually the site of
powerful electric discharges. NASA geologists paid no attention.

Jupiter is still capable of hurling a few thunderbolts!

"The biggest mystery about Io's volcanoes is why they're so hot," says
Bill Smythe, a co-investigator on JPL's NIMS team. "At 1800 K, the
vents are about 1/3 the temperature of the surface of the sun!"

The temperature measured by Galileo is an average based on the
sharpest resolution of its instruments. If scientists are having
difficulty explaining 1800 K, they are in for a shock when they get
closer...

_I predict that when seen close up the temperature of those hot spots
will approach that of the Sun as they are both electric arcs.
(Electric arcs create intensely hot spots.)_

The plan to fly the Galileo spacecraft through the the plume of an Io
volcano in November is therefore as foolhardy as flying a kite in an
electrical storm. It is to be hoped that NASA will recognise the
dangers in time to change their plan for November. That is, if Galileo
survives the October flyby.

"Another thing we'll be going for with these close-up flybys are high
resolution pictures of the lava flows", continued Smythe. "We really
want to know what the shapes and edges of the flows look like because
that can tell us a lot about the properties of the lava. On Earth lava
flows form little side lobes, or extrusions that look like arms, feet
and toes."

_On the contrary, most of the dark patterns seen radiating from the
crater_ in this image of the Marduk "volcano" _are not lava flows_.
They have the shape of lightning scars on Earth and are caused by
powerful currents streaking across the surface to satisfy the arc's
hunger for electric charge. They rip huge sinuous furrows in the soil
and hurl it to either side to form levee banks and side lobes. The
stubby side channels will be found to have rounded ends like those
seen on Martian "rivers".

Credit: _Closeup of an Io Volcano_ - NASA, Voyager Project, Copyright
Calvin J. Hamilton

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6. http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast04oct99_1.htm
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